Resolving Local Energy conflicts and Promoting Public Interests with new Modes of Organisation in the Energy Sector (EnerLOG)
Research Department: Institutional Change and Regional Public Goods
IRS Research Topic: Forms and Implications of Spatial Governance New Social Practices
Project Leader within IRS: Dr. Matthias Naumann
Project Team: Sören Becker Andrea Bues
Consortium: Leibniz Institute for Research on Society and Space (Coordination) ZukunftsAgentur Brandenburg Local Governments for Sustainability
Funding Organization: Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung
Duration: 08/2013 - 10/2016
The local level is central for implementing the German energy transition (Energiewende) and resolving numerous energy conflicts. This means that municipalities have to make decisions and take action in a wide range of fields pertaining to energy provision and use. As yet there exists hardly any systematically analysed empirical evidence of options for action and conflict resolution for local processes of restructuring energy systems. The research project “EnerLOG – Resolving local energy conflicts and promoting public interests with new modes of organisation in the energy sector” aimed to fill this gap. EnerLOG analysed experiences with, and prospects for, three emergent organisational forms of the Energiewende: re-municipalisation, energy cooperatives and bioenergy villages and related new modes of governance. The decision for particular modes of organising energy supply is linked to questions of social, ecological and economic objectives, framed in terms of public interests.
The project purported that promoting public interests via novel organisational forms offers an opportunity to resolve various local energy conflicts. The project aspired to provide the empirical and conceptual foundation with which to assess the role of emergent organisations in local energy governance, the importance of (diverse) public interests in local energy debates and how both can help address local energy conflicts. Starting from the analysis of local solutions and exploring the transferability of experiences between different local communities, it developed together with its partners a best practice guide for dealing with local energy conflicts and promoting public interests in local energy supply. The results are summarised in a compendium for practitioners and made available to the interested public.
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